6 YA Novels That Subvert the Mean Girl Trope

Firecracker, by David Iverson
Astrid Krieger is everything you’d expect a mean girl to be: she’s rich, she’s pretty, she’s manipulative, and she’s more than a little evil. She has also unexpectedly found herself at public school after being betrayed by someone close to her. Then it turns out her loyal minion-friends are less loyal than she thought, and adjusting to a new school turns out to be hard, and how is she supposed to get revenge when she’s busy trying to figure out her new life? Astrid is unapologetic and definitely mean, but girl’s got standards, and she’s not about to lower herself beneath them to make anyone happy

Some Girls Are, by Courtney Summers
She has it all: a spot on top of the social ladder, a handful of socially powerful friends, even a mean girl name: Regina Afton. But when rumors fly that she slept with her best friend’s boyfriend, all her cachet is lost. Abandoned by her friends, Regina has to deal with the ugly truth of what really happened on the night in question, and navigate being cast down among the people she used to bully, including the surprisingly cute Michael. There’s nothing like the turning of the tables to make a girl reconsider everything she thought she knew.

Anatomy of a Misfit, by Andrea Portes
Anika might be blonde and lip-glossed on the outside, but on the inside she’s a puddle of self-doubt, social anxiety, and weirdness. Enter bad boy Logan, and suddenly Anika’s not so sure she wants to go along with the mean-girl exterior any more. But how exactly does one grow a backbone and quit following the lead of the most popular girl in school? If you’ve ever wanted to see a mean girl grow up in a hailstorm of laughter and tears, Anatomy of a Misfit is the book for you.

Three Dark Crowns, by Kendare Blake
Take your mean girls out of high school and drop them into a fantasy world and you’ve got the setup for Three Dark Crowns. Triplet queens Katharine, Arsinoe, and Mirabella are destined to fight one another in pursuit of rights to their kingdom’s crown. Only one queen can survive, and everyone’s putting their bets on Mirabella. After all, she has everything on her side: power, looks, politics, and an army of angry priestesses. But on the inside, Mirabella has a secret: she’s the nicest one of them all. In fact, she doesn’t want to kill anyone; unfortunately, that won’t stop others from killing for her. For a fantasy read in which the mean girl is, well, not really mean at all, read this book right now.

Wink Poppy Midnight, by April Genevieve Tucholke
Mean girl Poppy is exactly that: heart-stoppingly, irrefutably mean. When Midnight moves away from their shared block, he starts to think he’ll finally be free of his painful crush on Poppy—especially since he has nice, weird, wacky Wink to distract him. But as Wink embarks on a mission of righteous revenge, and Midnight is pulled between the two girls’ warped worlds, he starts to question who, exactly, is their story’s true villain. If you’re looking for a mean girl turned victim turned what-is-actually-going-on-here, Wink Poppy Midnight needs to be on your to-be-read stack.

Pants on Fire, by Meg Cabot
Everything in Katie’s life is perfect, if you like football and football-playing boyfriends and being popular. But the trouble is, Katie likes none of those things. She’s just not sure how to get out of this world, now that she has dug herself so deep into it. The good news is, with Tommy Sullivan—the subject of Katie’s deepest, darkest secret—back in town, she might not have to do much at all. The bad news? Her secret isn’t going to stay secret for long.